


What It's Like Being Your Boyfriend

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 03:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You don’t know what it’s like being your boyfriend.” When Kurt flings that sentence at him, it stops Blaine in his tracks and sticks in his head long after the feelings of hurt and betrayal have healed.</p>
<p>vaguely set soon after and spoilers through 3x18 (“Choke”) - no spoilers for season four</p>
<p>The title comes from a line of Kurt's in "Dance With Somebody" (3x17)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What It's Like Being Your Boyfriend

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [What It's Like Being Your Boyfriend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11072694) by [Klaineship](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Klaineship/pseuds/Klaineship)



“Did you have to get him flowers when you guys made up? It always works when a girl’s pissed at me. Stuffed animals, too. They love those.”

“Have you asked Kurt to prom yet? I bet you made it really romantic!”

“It wouldn't kill you to smile. It also wouldn't kill you to stop letting Kurt pick out your clothes.”

“I’m glad Kurt let you out for dudes’ night. Rachel made me promise to take her to brunch tomorrow to make up for it. I don't get brunch. Who wants fewer meals in a day?”

“You guys showed me what it means to be a man. Not just last night, but for four years. Even you, Blaine.”

Blaine is used to getting comments that don't sit quite right in his heart. He has heard them since childhood; it's nothing new. He knows how to swallow them down, sometimes even with a smile, no matter how bad they might taste on the way.

_"You don't know what it's like being your boyfriend."_

When Kurt flings that last sentence at him during what Blaine hopes is the worst fight they ever have in their lives, it stops Blaine in his tracks and sticks in his head long after the feelings of hurt and betrayal have healed.

He hadn’t really thought about their relationship like that, but after Kurt says them the words linger. They stew. They churn in his chest, because he knows he and Kurt are different and are perceived that way, and now that it's out there he can see how it must be difficult for Kurt to date him. He doesn't want it to be, he hasn't tried to make it that way, but he can see it.

Blaine’s closer to the guys in glee club. He's one of them, welcomed to work out and hang out in a way Kurt never does, though when he thinks about it Blaine isn’t sure if that’s because he has an affinity to straight boys because of his years at Dalton that Kurt does not or even if Kurt’s association with the girls comes from the assumptions from those around him or at this point are self-imposed.

Blaine's considered attractive by some girls, and that means nobody blinks when they think about casting him as Tony or putting him up front before an audience.

He’s also considered attractive by some boys, and that Sebastian chased him as hard as he did was probably upsetting to Kurt on more levels and touched on more personal insecurities than just fearing for the loss of his boyfriend.

Blaine has had a friendly smile, a perfect set of manners, and a dislike of controversy instilled into him from a young age. He almost always does what he’s told, doesn’t rock the boat, and is a team player. He might love being out front, but he doesn’t need to push his way there. He just finds himself there.

Blaine gets duets with Rachel that had once been the sacred ground of Finn or Kurt. He’s given leads not because his talents are specifically suited to that one particular song but because he’s just that much stronger of an overall performer than Finn or Sam or Artie, strong enough that even Finn was jealous of him.

He can see why all of that is hard for Kurt, because Blaine is accepted in such a different and much easier way than Kurt is, when all Kurt has ever wanted was to be accepted just as himself.

He can see why Kurt could look at Blaine and the welcome he's been given and feel like he's being overlooked in comparison again and again. He can see why Kurt could look at Blaine, at his friendships, his flirtations, and his leads, and feel like he was being marginalized or ignored in a club that was supposed to be _his_ when his own boyfriend - also gay, also a performer, also with a history of being bullied - is treated so differently.

But the thing is... the thing that grows and seethes and breathes inside of Blaine when he thinks about it at night is that Kurt doesn’t know what it’s like being _his_ boyfriend, either. He can’t know, because he’s on the inside looking out through his gorgeous eyes, but Blaine knows all too well how hard it is to be on the other side of the relationship.

Because Blaine might be better friends with the guys, but Kurt is the one who gets invited to the girls’ sleepovers like he’s one of them, while Blaine is more often an afterthought or slightly less 'manly' addition to the boys’ outings.

And Blaine might get those duets and leads, but he sings safe, popular songs. When Kurt sings with Rachel it’s a master class in what amazing voices and innate talent can do. Kurt does have to sit on that stool in the back sometimes while Blaine is up in front of the group, but when Kurt takes the stage by himself the whole world focuses on him and how exceptional he is. When Blaine sings, he leads the song. When Kurt sings, he _embodies_ the song, he shines like the star he is, and nothing and no one else matters.

Blaine might have been given the part of Tony because of his more palatable form of masculinity, but he had to work and work and fail and work some more to get every detail of the part right. His director told him he lacked understanding of Tony's feelings. He flubbed his dance steps. Kurt just fell into his own part like he had written it and stole every scene he was in.

Blaine might be able to wear what he wants without getting slushied for it, but Kurt can come into school in a fabulous and daring outfit and be surrounded by the girls complimenting him; Blaine tries something a little different - a bright shirt, a new tie, a patterned sweater - and gets asked by Santana or Coach Sylvester or his own brother if Kurt is dressing him, because obviously it couldn't be his own sense of style.

Blaine might have slowly fit in, making friends, slipping into most of the little groups in glee club so much more easily than Kurt ever has, but Blaine knows that Kurt did the hard work of opening up their hearts to a gay friend. He also knows that just because he has a good voice and a solid work ethic doesn’t mean that any of them - from Rachel to Artie to Mr. Schuester - would choose him over Kurt if it really came down to it, not for long.

It’s hard for Blaine to be Kurt’s boyfriend, because he is always judged in relationship to him. He's not seen on his own. People might assume things about Kurt because of his voice or the way he carries himself, but they assume things about Blaine and his role in the relationship for the very same reasons.

They assume that Blaine is the man, the stronger one, the less emotional one, when they’re both men, and they both have their strengths, and Blaine is the one who wears his heart on his sleeve every day because he knows no other way to love.

They assume that Blaine's the one who is forceful enough to push boundaries at the right time. They assume that Blaine is in charge, that Blaine is the one who decides when, where, and how they do things, that Blaine is the one whose hands reach first to take off their clothes or to buy a bouquet of flowers to give as a gift. They assume it has to be Kurt on his knees, Kurt begging for more, and Blaine always and forever on top, giving and not taking.

And they couldn't be more wrong.

Or at least they couldn't be more wrong some of the time, because neither of them fits one role or the other. They fit together not because they're masculine and feminine but because they're them. That's the whole point.

_"You don't know what it's like being your boyfriend."_

Kurt stands out. Kurt stands on his own, able to control his smiles and touches in public. Kurt is able to walk with his head held high wearing anything, singing anything, being anything as long as it is himself. Kurt is always Kurt.

And Blaine watches him with his heart in his throat and in his eyes, so amazed and in love that he can't think clearly sometimes.

Yet Blaine is seen as the 'guy', the one who is comfortable hanging out with the other boys in glee, who might wear a bow tie but who doesn't ever wear knee-high boots with it, and who is thereby worthy of the male leads. Because he’s more acceptable to them. Because he falls into more stereotypical ideas of masculinity. Because in their minds he's almost straight.

It makes something unhappy and ashamed twist in his stomach when he thinks of it.

Blaine doesn’t want to be the so-called alpha gay. He hasn't tried to be. He doesn’t want to be the 'man' in the relationship. He is learning through the steady acceptance of Kurt's love that he really doesn’t want to be anything but Blaine, the person he is underneath, the person he is with Kurt. He wants to be himself, just himself, flawed and finding his own way.

But the world sees something different.

The world sees something different, and Blaine is as trapped by it as he’s been trapped his whole life by other people's expectations.

_"You don't know what it's like being your boyfriend."_

Blaine is judged before he opens his mouth, he's put in a role before he takes Kurt's hand, and he's accepted because they think he's something that he really isn't, not underneath.

He's let in in ways that Kurt is not, but it isn't because people accept the real him any more than they do Kurt. In fact, he thinks, they do even less. Kurt, at least, they judge as his own person.

Blaine doesn't begrudge Kurt an iota of the respect he gets for being himself, but he also can't fight the way he's seen in comparison. He wouldn’t even know how.

So he sings his leads, because he loves to sing, and tries a new tie here and there, because he likes to express himself through his appearance, and he watches with pride from beside Mike or Finn as Kurt sparkles every day in the halls of McKinley and absolutely dazzles in solos and auditions. He watches with pride and a little envy.

Kurt doesn't have to try or be allowed to stand out as different. No one questions it or thinks twice about it. He's Kurt. He just does. He just _is_.

And Blaine… to their friends, to the world - if not to Kurt, not in the same negative way, because Kurt truly does love him, all of him - Blaine is that guy who can lead a song and punch a bag, that guy who is Kurt's boyfriend.

~end~

**Author's Note:**

> I am a spoilerphobe and am almost entirely unspoiled for season four of Glee. Please be kind and careful in any comments you might leave to keep from spoiling me. Don't tell me that you're not telling me spoilers. Don't even tell me that there ARE spoilers. Thank you! :)


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